Aryan Invasion Theory -The missing link
By Sushil Agarwal
http://www.the-pioneer.com/test/home1.htm

"They commit to memory immense amounts of poetry, ...some of them continue their studies for 20 years... they have knowledge of the stars and their motion, of the size of the world and of the earth, of natural philosophy, and of the powers and spheres of action of the immortal gods, which they discuss and hand down to their young students."

The above may appear to be an apt description of a Gurukul in ancient India. But no, this is a statement attributed to Julius Caesar made about Celtic Druides of Gaulish society in ancient times. Prof Myles Dillon, an eminent linguist from Ireland, in his book Celts and Aryans has quoted the statement to indicate "the similarity in status and function between Celtic Druid and Hindu Brahmin" pointing clearly to a common Indo-European inheritance. A detailed analysis of the ancient literature of both India and the Celtic people can prove the commonality in the language, law and institutions in the two societies.

In present-day Europe, the people of Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the British Isles and the Brittany area in France is called the Celtic speaking people. But in ancient times, Celtic dialects were spoken in a vast area extending from parts of Turkey to large parts of Europe. During the pre-Christ period, Celts wielded great power in Europe for a couple of centuries. They are now confined only to the western-most areas of Europe and British Isles.

The ancient Celtic society in Gaul (France) was divided into three groups: Druides (priests), Equites (warriors) and the Plebs (common people). This corresponded closely to the social set-up in India. The parallel names in Ireland were Fili, Flaith and Aithech. Apart from the social structure, the influence of Indian traditions is visible in Celtic folklore also.

Indian tradition describes eight forms of marriage while the ancient Irish tradition also talks of eight to ten forms of marriage. The nature of these marriages in the two traditions may not exactly be the same, but a degree of closeness is visible. For example, besides the regular marriages, relationship accepted on man’s invitation or marriage by force seem to be similar to the Gandharva and Asura forms in India.

Curious similarities are found in economic matters also. In ancient India, a person having given a loan to another would adopt various methods for collecting his money, one of which amounted to either a sit-in or hunger strike at the door of the debtor until the payment was made. The ancient Irish laws also speak of a creditor’s fast till death to recover the money from a debtor.

Another economic similarity was the recognition of wealth in cattle. In the Vedas, cows are the proper measure of value, and gold became a standard only later. In Ireland too, cows remained the measure of one’s value as long as the old order lasted. In the societies, cows represented fortune, prosperity, and the satisfaction of needs and desires of men in both ancient societies.

In India, rivers are revered as cows, flow of their water as flow of milk and the Sanskrit word for cow (go) occurs in the river names, such as Gomati (possessing cows) or Godavari (giving cows). In Ireland too, the word for cow is bo which occurs in the names of their rivers, such as Bo Nemid, Bo Guare, Boand. Boand means cow-finder whose Sanskrit parallel with same meaning is ‘Govind’.

The point to be considered is why is there so much similarity in the two societies, when geographically the two places are so far away from each other. Do the Vedic and the Celts belong to a common stock of people who were separated at some point of time in distant past? The scholars are inclined to answer this in the affirmative. But there are differences in identifying the original homeland of these ancient people called the Indo-Europeans.

On this question, one may follow the trail of the ‘Aryan invasion theory’ invented by the nationalist Germans and the colonial British scholars during the last century to explain the strange phenomenon of linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and many European and Central Asian languages. The basic premise of the theory is that in ancient times people living in a certain area in Europe or Central Asia, most probably in South Russia (but certainly not in India), moved out of their habitat and entered different areas in Europe and Asia. The Aryans entered India as invaders and gradually dominated the entire land besides developing their literature called Vedas.

The idea of Aryan invasion is totally unknown to the Indian tradition and literature. Many leading Indian scholars have negated this theory. They hold that the original homeland of the Indo-European people was India. That it was from India that the large scale migration took place to various directions including Iran and Central Asia, Asia minor and European countries.

An old Irish story of Manannan and Oengus call India a sacred land, from where two cows were brought whose milk tasted like honey. The obvious inference that can be drawn from this mythological story is that the migration to Europe and Celtic areas took place from India which is why the Celtic tradition remembers India as a prosperous land, and also which is why it reveals such significant traces of Indian influence. Nomadic hordes are not capable of developing any profound philosophy or literature. Clearly, the migrations to European areas took place out of a developed Vedic culture whose cradle indeed was India.

Copyright © 2001 - All Rights Reserved.

a r t i c l e s    o n    a r y a n    i n v a s i o n